'Bomb Texas': The psychological roots of anti-Americanism

Opinion Journal ^ | 01/13/03 | Victor Davis Hanson

[Pokey78]

With this past autumn's discussion in Washington over what to do about Iraq there arrived also the season of protests. They were everywhere. In the national newspapers, Common Cause published a full-page letter, backed by "7,000 signatories," demanding (as if it had been outlawed) a "full and open debate" before any American action against Iraq. More radical cries emanated from Not in Our Name, a nationwide "project" spearheaded by Noam Chomsky and affiliates, which likewise ran full-page advertisements in the major papers decrying America's "war without limit," organized "Days of Resistance" in New York and elsewhere, and in general made known its feeling that the United States rather than Iraq poses the real threat to world peace. At one late-October march in Washington, there were signs proclaiming "I Love Iraq, Bomb Texas," and depicting President Bush wearing a Hitler mustache and giving the Nazi salute.

[Pokey78]

VDH MEGA-PING!

[Anti-Bubba182]

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[Utah Girl]

Victor Davis Hanson ping.

[Dark Wing]

ping

[Maynerd]

Excellent essay. Thank you for the post.

[lorrainer]

Should be required reading for every high school student in the country.

[AFPhys]

In [their] protected world, ..., it is not surprising that those most critical of America are not the purported victims of its supposedly rapacious capitalist system--farm workers, car mechanics or welders--but [instead] those in the arts, universities, media and government who have the time and leisure to contemplate utopian perfection without firsthand and daily exposure to backbreaking physical labor, unrepentant bullies or unapologetically violent criminals. ... [and] enables a fanciful shift from thinking in the immediate and concrete to idle musings of the distant and abstract.

For many, today's affluence is also accompanied by an unprecedented sense of security.

Long, long read, but I found it worth every paragraph. Good insight, and synopsis. I will bookmark, print, and highlight this article to show around to some of my friends and intellectual competitors.

PING!!!

[baseballmom]

Worth Repeating. Excellent, excellent essay.

Big BUMP

[beckett]

Here's a keeper. This guy is on his game today.

[July 4th]

Israel could give over the entire West Bank, suffer 10,000 dead from suicide bombers, and apologize formally for its existence, and it would still be despised by American and European intellectuals for being what it is--Western, prosperous, confident, and successful amid a sea of abject self-induced failure.

Sums up the entire Middle East conflict in one sentence. Slam dunk.

[KeyWest]

Thanks. An exceptional article.

[MindyW]

Bump for later reading.

[metesky]

The superciliousness of the educated knows no end...

Spot on!
Thanks, Pokey78.

[xp38]

Thanks for the ping....a worthy read.

[Rocko]

Bump.

[Alas Babylon!]

Long, but worthy read.

[iconoclast]

The example of Rome, in short, is an apt one,

Very true, but not quite for the reasons this fellow cites.

The old right takes solace in the fact that our own cultural decay was/is well along before the thirst for empire set in.

[Celtjew Libertarian]

Heh. I read this around two in the morning, said "Wow!" woke up my wife to read it to her, and got a "Wow!" from her as well.

[maica]

---snip---
As in the medieval church or among Soviet apparatchiks, the pull of groupspeak is always strong among compliant and opportunistic elites. For today's intellectuals, professors and artists, being on the team pays real dividends when it comes to tenure, promotion, publication, reviews, lecture invitations, social acceptance and psychic reassurance. And the dividends are compound: One is a lockstep member of one's crowd and one enjoys the frisson of dissidence, of being at variance, but always so comfortably at variance, with one's benighted fellow citizens.

---

Brilliant article - one to be printed out, studied, and used (tactfullly of course) in discussions with 'groupthinkers.'